Absorbent wound dressings are often used on wounds with moderate to high drainage of wound fluid where typically the patient's skin at the wound and periwound area is very fragile. An absorbent wound dressing includes an absorbent material, such as foam, for placement adjacent to the wound. The absorbent material often has a film covering the backside to prevent passage of wound fluid entirely through the absorbent material.
Absorbent wound dressings are often used with an overlying wrap bandage, such as with a 3M Coban™ Compression Bandage, available from 3M Company, St. Paul Minn. When applying the absorbent wound dressing to the patient, it is helpful to have an ability to hold the absorbent wound dressing in place until the overlying bandage is wrapped around the absorbent wound dressing and more securely holds the absorbent wound dressing.
To help with holding of the absorbent wound dressing, an adhesive may be included on the skin-facing surface of the absorbent material. However, the adhesive can limit the ability of the absorbent material to easily absorb wound exudates. Also, it may be undesirable to include adhesive on the skin-facing surface because of the sensitive and fragile skin of the patient.
An overlying thin-film dressing, such as a 3M Tegaderm™ Dressing available from 3M Company of St. Paul, Minn., can be applied over an absorbent wound dressings to secure the absorbent wound dressing to the patient. Similarly, dressings that include the overlying thin-film backing with an absorbent core, such as a 3M Tegaderm™ HP Foam Dressing available from 3M Company of St. Paul, Minn. can be used on high exudating wounds. These products work well, but there may be instances where it would be desirable to not have an adhesive in contact with fragile skin for an extended period of time.
Tape can be used to secure the absorbent wound dressing to the patient. However, it can be cumbersome to pull a tape section from a roll of tape while trying to secure the wound dressing to the patient. Also, many tapes have too high of a peel strength and either may damage the fragile skin upon removal or may adhere to strongly to the back side of the absorbent wound dressing, which prevents the tape from being removed prior to application of the overlying wrap bandage.